When California rolled out online voter registration in September, political experts doubted those new registrants would vote in significant numbers. But they voted like crazy – 83 percent of the 817,000 online registrants voted, far better than the overall turnout of 73 percent. They accounted for 5 percent of all ballots cast.

“I don’t think anybody anticipated this,” said Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc., which did the turnout analysis. “It bucked conventional wisdom, which was that these were young people who were online at 2 a.m. on Facebook and signed up to vote but wouldn’t actually go to the polls.”

Mitchell suspects social media helped drive the phenomenon, as campaigns increasingly turn to Facebook and Twitter to help get their message out. That notion was supported by a lobbyist who spent a modest $4,200 on Facebook ads targeting California college students for support of Proposition 30, a temporary tax hike to benefit schools.

“I was skeptical, but was amazed at the click-through,” said Scott Lay, president and CEO of the Community College League of California. “Leading up to the registration deadline, the ads linked directly to the Secretary of State’s online registration page, and then we shifted to ‘find your polling place’ ad.

“Californians who were willing to go to a boring Web 1.0 state government website and enter their personal information made a gesture that they wanted to vote.”

Democrats’ advantage

Democrats were the beneficiaries of online registrants, with 49 percent signing up as Democrats and 19 percent as Republicans. Twenty-four percent had no party preference.

Even in Orange County, where Republicans have a 10 percentage point advantage in overall registration, online registrants favored Democrats over Republicans, 38 percent to 28 percent.

Mitchell said Democrats’ extraordinary advantage among online registrants was due to demographics.

“Democrats are doing better with younger voters and they’re the ones who were registering online,” he said.

That could be motivation behind Democrats in the state Legislature introducing additional bills this year to increase voter access. Proposals include encouraging polling places on college campuses, allowing teenagers to pre-register at age 15, and allowing 17-year-olds to vote in the primary if they’ll turn 18 by the general election.

There’s also a proposal to study online voting – including a pilot program – and one, by Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, that would count any mail ballots postmarked by Election Day. Currently, the ballots must be received by Election Day. Mitchell said about 38,000 ballots went uncounted statewide because they were received late, although it’s not known how many were postmarked by Election Day.

The Age Gauge

Mitchell also mapped out party affiliation by age of those who cast ballots statewide last November. The younger a voter is, the less likely he or she is to be Republican – 42 percent of 85-year-olds are Republican while 21 percent of 18-year-olds are. Meanwhile, 47 percent of 85-year-olds are Democrats and 42 percent of 18-year-olds are.

Some argue that people are more likely to become Republicans as they grow older, but Mitchell says this data provides overriding evidence that people retain their original party affiliation.

One indication of that is the bubble beginning with age 56, peaking at age 62, and concluding with age 72. These are particularly good ages for Democrats and weak ages for Republicans. Mitchell points out that Watergate is the probable cause for that bubble – when Richard Nixon resigned in 1974, those now 56 were 18 and those now 62 were 24.

“When you register to vote, you register with that party for good,” Mitchell said.

Watergate’s impact reached into Orange County too, with Democrats briefly gaining the advantage in voter registration here in the wake of Nixon’s resignation.

Martin Wisckol has been the Register's politics writer and weekly Buzz columnist since 1998, and was given the title of political editor by a generous boss in 2011. He started his career writing about surfing and music, but has written predominantly about government and politics since 1985. He has held reporting positions in his hometown of San Diego, as well as in Detroit, Jacksonville and Miami. Along the way, he has put in extended stints in Japan, South America and Switzerland. His work has been honored by the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Headliner Awards, the California Newspaper Publishers Association and the Florida Press Club, among others.

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